Then memory returned, though very slowly and broken in many places, for it seemed to her as if she had not been separated from him a moment, and as if he must know all she had done without hearing her story in words. The time had been so short since she had kissed him last, in the little room beyond: there had been the minutes of waiting until the King had come, and then the trying of the door, and then the quarrel, that had lasted a short ten minutes to end in Don John's fall; then the half hour during which he had lain unconscious and alone till Inez had come at the moment when Dolores had gone down to the throne room; and after that the short few minutes in which she had met her father, and then her interview with the King, which had not lasted long, and now she was with him again; and it was not two hours since they had parted--a lifetime of two hours.
"I cannot believe it!" she cried, and now she laughed at last. "I cannot, I cannot! It is impossible!"
"We are both alive," he answered. "We are both flesh and blood, and breathing. I feel as if I had been in an illness or in a sleep that had lasted very long."
"And I in an awful dream." Her face grew grave as she thought of what was but just passed. "You must know it all--surely you know it already--oh, yes! I need not tell it all."
"Something Inez has told me," he replied, "and some things I guess, but I do not know everything. You must try and tell me--but you should not be here--it is late. When my servants know that I am living, they will come back, and my gentlemen and my officers. They would have left me here all night, if I had been really dead, lest being seen near my body should send them to trial for my death." He laughed. "They were wise enough in their way. But you cannot stay here."
"If the whole court found me here, it would not matter," answered Dolores. "Their tongues can take nothing from my name which my own words have not given them to feed on."
"I do not understand," he said, suddenly anxious. "What have you said? What have you done?"
Inez came near them from the window, by which she had been standing. She laid a hand on Dolores' arm.
"I will watch," she said. "If I hear anything, I will warn you, and you can go into the small room again."
She went out almost before either of them could thank her. They had, indeed, forgotten her presence in the room, being accustomed to her being near them; but she could no longer bear to stay, listening to their loving words that made her loneliness so very dark. And now, too, she had memories of her own, which she would keep secret to the end of her life,--beautiful and happy recollections of that sweet moment when the man that seemed dead had breathed and had clasped her in his arms, taking her for the other, and had kissed her as he would have kissed the one he loved. She knew at last what a kiss might be, and that was much; but she knew also what it was to kneel by her dead love and to feel his life come back, breath by breath and beat by beat, till he was all alive; and few women have felt that or can guess how great it is to feel. It was better to go out into the dark and listen, lest any one should disturb the two, than to let her memories of short happiness be marred by hearing words that were not meant for her.